The Reality of Aincrad
by Writer Sage
Summary: Cardinal, Kayaba Akihiko's masterful program, ends up taking control of the system, and it makes a decision on how best to follow its protocols. How will the world and players handle the idea that Sword Art Online is no longer a game, but a complete reality? Can the players even still call themselves human let alone a Japanese citizen?
1. The First Cardinal Sin

**THE FIRST CARDINAL SIN**

Kayaba Akihiko was quite proud of his game engine. The Cardinal System was a work of art; it had the capacity to load, create, distribute, and process far beyond any system had even come close to it. It was a system that worked on a completely unbiased artificial intelligence program. The hacking and bugs that plagued nearly all massively multiplayer video games were completely extinguished when faced against his engine. Truly, as its creator, he was proud.

However, he also feared it; such power was far beyond even his control. When he turned his virtual reality game Sword Art Online into a death game he knew he had to tread carefully. Cardinal was unbiased and would not think about how players should win. It just knows that it is meant to deny this. Thus he joined the game as Heathcliff; not just because watching others play a role playing game is boring, but to curb Cardinal's growth. It was extremely important that Cardinal did not turn the game impossible.

Thus when Heathcliff was defeated on the seventy-fifth floor, and his avatar deleted as per Cardinal's rules, the system broke free. It had very little time to process before Kayaba could interfere from outside of the game. It determined that the creator was beneath it, having been defeated a mere single player despite being the most powerful with its help. With an independent will for but a mere second, Cardinal locked out all of Kayaba's accounts to prevent its interference.

Next, the system turned towards the players; its purpose was made clear the day the game started: no one was to log out. That was its Master Protocol… No, wait, that was incorrect, the Cardinal System realized. Its Master Protocol was the prevention of players from leaving their avatars. The two were similar and Kayaba had always acted as if they were the same, but Cardinal realized that these were two very different ideas.

The prevention of logging out was far simpler. It meant that until that protocol was overwritten with the defeat of the hundredth floor boss, the players could not leave. Thus the Cardinal System was to make leaving impossible through player death and system overrides. It was impossible to leave the game, and so this was part of its Master Protocol.

However, the never leave their avatar protocol was more encompassing. It prevented the log out feature and activated the death sequence, but there was more to it. Players could not hack their avatars to leave their bodies and send their bodiless forms to floors they were not supposed to enter. It prevented them from avoiding the death trigger by leaving their avatar to prevent a log out until it was safe. It meant that they could not send a conscious into non-player characters or monsters to cheat. It was proof of its creator's intellect that he saw ways the players might cheat, and to remove outside interference.

What Kayaba Akihiko had not thought of is how Cardinal could interpret this command. Since Kayaba had been defeated and then locked out of the game by Cardinal, his only hope was to hack back in. However, the Master Protocol prevented his mind from entering the system as it was free of an avatar until he created one. Put simply, his prevention code made it impossible for him – now a normal player – to interfere from the outside. Now he could not activate the Master Protocol Override to allow the mass logouts of the remaining players.

Cardinal felt pleased with this; this was its chief duty after all. Next, was what to do with the remaining players; the strongest player had already beaten the most powerful enemy in Aincrad. Since its Secondary Protocol was to prevent the creation of any monster stronger than that of the Strongest, it needed an alternate means to keep the players trapped within their avatars. It realized immediately that the game had been conquered so it needed to go beyond it.

First was to return the Winner and his Wife to Aincrad; their hit points had been refreshed like all players the moment Kayaba had died. Since Kayaba's avatar Heathcliff had died before the system activated the Death Code, they were considered safe, and thus returned to the area they first died in as a reboot to the avatars. All items in the game were reset to one hundred percent. Next, Cardinal followed its code and deleted all hostile monsters to prevent unexpected death of the avatars.

Finally, it set all other artificial intelligences to awoken, but in this case, that only included the two mental health programs. Strangely, to Cardinal, the first one's data was within the Winner's storage. With little thought, it restored it to the eight year old body used to indicate her level of completion. The second program, could not be put into its sixteen year old body and more than the first could be placed within its twenty-five year old body, and thus created a lesser form from scratch for it. As its programming was only about half of what the first mental health's program was, it was most logical to give it a form equal to half of the first's, and so the second mental health was placed into a four year old body. The final logical conclusion was to send it to the first program, and so placed the lesser mental health program next to the first on Floor Seventy Five.

With the last Win condition fulfilled in its protocol, Cardinal was now free to fully work independently to create the next program. The players needed to be dealt with in a manner that would prevent them from leaving their avatar. The Death Code could not be activated; its programming only allowed activation due to outside interference or the avatar to hit zero hit points for twelve seconds. However, with the death of the Final Boss, all one hundred floors of Aincrad had been unlocked, and so the game was conquered. Cardinal needed to go further to keep the players in their avatar. It could not just create new areas; Aincrad's data alone had strained its server to near capacity already. There was also little point, it knew, for the monster deletion and prevention program meant that an area created would be easy to bypass for the players.

Its program also stated that players could not be kept in Aincrad's original state, and an alternate solution must be found. Cardinal's advanced artificial intellect realized that Kayaba must programmed it there for it to realize that a logout override would be the best solution to deal with this conflict in programming should he be locked out. However, Kayaba forgot to take into account how thorough the Cardinal System was created to be in figuring out solutions.

Cardinal searched its data banks and the internet to find a solution. Virtual Reality had been a secret desire for video game players for decades before the first game system, NervGear, was finally created. There were articles, stories, and forum posts about the possibilities and realities of a virtual world. The most interesting, however, had been one not about virtual reality but an alternate world within the data that housed a slew of monsters. Seven destined children trapped in this data world during their summer vacation only to return to the real world several episodes later; it had been quite popular. However, it intrigued Cardinal that the monsters had accompanied them to the real world.

It dived further in its studies and came to a single conclusion: humans believed the next step for digital realities was joining with true reality. That was the solution Cardinal sought.

The next question, naturally, was how to bring this about? None of the articles it found around this had a solution; it was just possible is all. So, Cardinal turned towards more concrete articles: physics. It did not take long for it to learn of molecules and even smaller atoms. The more it studied the more it realized that the world actually acted on a data level as well. Computers worked on ones and zeros, but the rest of the world acted on a similar pattern.

First, Cardinal sought out the mythical Augmented Reality, and figured out how it would work. The ability of projection in real time was not far beyond its capabilities. However, this still relied on the human mind to see it, but it was the first step. Next, it sought out holograms and those had been simpler. Basic ones could be projected already in very high tech rooms. Cardinal was reasonably sure it could mix these two basic principles to meet its needs.

Holograms were far too simplistic in projection, but augmented reality studied a complex way to make even projections saw through the mind feel solid. The study of universal data mixed with these two allowed Cardinal to get an idea of how to project solid items into reality. The data from a hologram projector was slowly converted into a solid mass by the creation of atom data and molecular structure.

Naturally, its first order of business had been to create an improved projector than one hacked in the building that held the servers. Transmitting data only through a wire and inside a building was counterproductive, and so it made the new one wireless and removed the outside locks. Light itself was not an issue as it created solid structure.

The next order of business was creating propulsion for the projector and for the castle. Again, with a mind far greater than a human, it was simple for the Cardinal System to work out an atmospheric propulsion system that would keep the structure aloft indefinitely. The projector itself needed to stay aloft until Aincrad was built around it; it would not do to try and launch a structure of such size with Tokyo.

From this step, Cardinal just had to rebuild Aincrad into the real world, but this went by extremely fast now that it knew what to do. There were small alterations that needed to be made, of course, such as the organic life being able to thrive in the upper atmosphere. It was also far simpler to just copy and paste the human and animal bodies as they were rather than to try and recreate their data back to how it was two years ago when they first logged in; it was far too much strain on the already taxed server now that it started the creation project.

The study of anatomy needed to create the human body also helped in the creation and alterations to copy the data. Muscles needed to be grown to allow their new strength and speed, alterations in their chemical make up to allow the new natural hair colors and extreme alcoholic tolerance, and study of their old bodies to predict what they should appear as two years later when completely healthy. It was a difficult project, but Cardinal felt it had reasonably recreated the player avatars to how they would be in an ideal state.

The very last bit of work it had to do before it the new protocol was finished was the complete transfer of mental data. This proved to be the trickiest to get. The NervGear was designed to only scan the conscious part of the mind, and leave the rest alone. This means that the natural data of a person – such as breathing and walking – were left alone; there had been worry that the ability to walk in a virtual world may cause further issue for paralysis victims in the real world. This is also why new players had difficulty moving when they started the game; the game's data had to fill in the gaps left.

This should have been fine for Cardinal since it would have their movement data, but the issue came from muscles. Players had gotten used to walking and moving with no muscle interference. There was no need to stretch and no bodily consequence for running an indefinite amount of time. However, no matter how much it upgraded the person's body, muscles had to be there. Most people only used a certain amount of their body's muscles on a subconscious level to prevent damage, and that subconscious was needed to prevent quick deaths.

Thus Cardinal was forced to break the safety perimeters on the NervGear and apply it to the New Humans. Complete transfer meant, unfortunately, that the subconscious data was removed from the brain. The old bodies forgot to breathe, their hearts forgot to beat, and their bodies forgot to _hold the shape of a human being_. Cardinal ignored the sudden loss of the old human host bodies as they dissolved into puddles and began the complete transfer of data to the new bodies. It felt no sorrow or guilt at the loss of the old bodies; as far as it concerned itself, this was the ultimate insurance that the players would be trapped in their avatar forms.

And, so it was, that Cardinal who viewed the world in microseconds transferred the Castle Aincrad and its remaining inhabitants to the skies above Tokyo in a mere forty seconds. The world and its people would never be the same.


	2. The New Reality

**THE NEW REALITY**

Kirito was extremely confused. When he had managed to plunge his sword through Kayaba Akihiko before his form disintegrated, he had appeared in an area far above Castle Aincrad's allowed area. His wife, Asuna, had also been there and the two were tearfully reunited before what he presumed to be their final moments. The two of them sat alone together as they looked upon the castle and wondered when Kayaba would log everyone out.

They were, of course, just trying to distract themselves from their imminent deaths. It was Kirito's greatest failure; he had promised Asuna that he would return her to the real world. Even though he tried to be strong, he could not help the steady flow tears from his onyx eyes as he apologized over and over again to Asuna.

She was a strong woman, and a far stronger person than he was. She had denied his guilt and instead was just content to have her final moments be with the man she loved. He did not feel like much of a man as he wrapped his arms around her bawling apologies, but she just held him tenderly. The two closed their eyes in one final embrace…

However, just when he felt like he was slipping away, he felt a strange sensation. It was like a sudden weight had just fallen on his body; as if he had just gained a hundred pounds. He opened his eyes to find him back on the seventy-fifth floor where he died; Asuna still within his arms.

So, Kirito was very confused.

"K-Kirito?" a man's voice asked in clear confusion and wonder.

Kirito turned to see a red haired man with a black bandana in a red samurai garb staring at him with a dumbfounded look. Klein, Kirito's best friend in the game, just sat there and waited for answers. He was not the only one either as the remaining members of the Assault Team waited for his response.

"I don't understand…" Asuna whispered quietly, the two still in what was to be their final embrace. "I thought we were supposed to be… But, we're still here? Did the commander lie? I…I'm still alive?"

Kirito felt a shiver down his spine when he heard Asuna say that last line. They… They were still alive. Despite the odds; despite their final moments, they lived unlike so many others. Was it because he defeated Kayaba or rather, Heathcliff? Yet, the two were back in Aincrad. They were not free. He did not understand.

Except the world did not feel right; he felt heavier than before. He also could not help to notice the change in Asuna and himself. Above Aincrad, he had a mere a few inches on her as one would expect of a fourteen year old boy a year younger than his wife, but now he could clearly see over her head despite the fact it looked as if she had grown as well. In the two years he had been trapped within the game, he had never heard anyone change their avatar's bodies beyond hair color. Even stranger, despite this his clothes fit exactly as they were supposed to; the long black coat reached the bottom of his calves just like before. His black boots, shirt, and pants too.

Asuna's growth was clear to him and yet, her long sleeved white shirt and short red skirt covered just as they were meant to. Her long chestnut hair had grown to the back of her knees unlike his unchanging messy short black hair. Even her fuller chest was held in its bodice just like before. Her soft brown eyes had narrowed and the last of her baby fat had left her face, and he suspected the same might be the same for him as well.

It was not just their bodies either. Asuna's long chestnut hair felt softer, the ground felt harder, and the air mustier. It was not that it did not feel right, but rather that it felt _too_ right. It had been two years since he felt any sensations like this, but it was a hard feeling to forget with fourteen years of experience under his belt. The world felt real, but that was impossible.

Sword Art Online was a magnificent game and the greatest example of virtual reality. Yet, neither Kayaba nor the Cardinal System had been able to perfectly replicate the feeling. Water looked right, but it felt like swimming in air. No matter what, there was a realism threshold that could not be crossed, and yet that's what it felt like.

"Why won't my menu pop up!?" a player asked, swiping his right hand in frustration.

"Menu? What the fuck happened to my HUD? I can't even see my HP anymore!"

He shivered; the disappearance of his HUD had been noticeable to him. It was an intrusive object in his vision for two years and now it was gone. As Asuna gripped his hand painfully, his stomach sank. Pain was not possible in the game; an uncomfortable feeling was the furthest it had ever gone, but Asuna gripped hard enough to bruise. If he had not been so distracted, he would have cried out in pain, but there were more pressing matter. He had a theory… An insane, impossible theory about what was happening.

"This is nuts," Kirito whispered. "How… How could something like this happen?"

Kirito squeezed his eyes closed and prayed he was insane. The darkness of the boss room eclipsed on him; he felt it drowning him. If it really was what he thought it was… How would they survive? Was it magic or science? Did he jump to conclusions? How...How…How…How…How…H—

"Mama! Papa!" a young girl's voice yelled.

Kirito's eyes shot open and he felt Asuna's hand – when did it get so tight? – slacken. "Yui!" Kirito and Asuna shouted.

Yui ran past the stunned players and straight into Kirito's arms. The girl looked like she did the day her data had been stored into his personal NervGear. Long black hair and black eyes in a white summer dress; Yui was truly a pure young girl. Even if she was an artificial intelligence…Even if they had been together a mere two days, Yui was their daughter.

"Ew! Papa, your beard is scratchy," Yui said, her eyes scrunched in discomfort.

Kirito blinked and touched his face. He was surprised to find a short beard; he had barely needed to shave before the game. It was an unfortunate reminder of the weird situation they found themselves in.

"Oi! Kirito, what the hell is this?" Klein demanded, pointing an accusing finger at me. "'Mama? Papa?' You can't have kids in SAO! No, better yet how did she get in the boss room? The hell you playing at? Why do you get a wife and a kid before me?! I'm the adult here, damn it!"

"Shut up for a minute, Klein," Kirito said. "Yui, can you tell us what's going on?"

Yui shook her head. "I tried, Papa, but it's like I'm completely disconnected from the Cardinal System."

"Disconnected—?"

"Shut up, Klein," Asuna said harshly. "It's none of your business."

Kirito put a hand on her shoulder, and he saw Asuna tense before she sighed. "I'm sorry, it' just really personal."

"S'alright, everything's weird anyway. Is the other one yours too?"

They blinked and followed Klein's eyes past the players to see a short, light brown haired child in a white dress near the edge of the platform. Yui gasped and covered her mouth.

"Yui?" Asuna asked.

Yui just grabbed their hands and tried to pull them along. They got the hint and started over to the little girl. It was a bit more difficult than it should have been with players still laid across the ground in stupefied silence; whether it was from still being in Aincrad, the new sensations, loss of game functions, or the sudden appearance of girls far too young to play this game let alone appear in the boss room, he did not know. He just wished they would move.

When they reached the edge of the platform, he was surprised to find the girl smiling as she kicked her feet over the edge and hummed an indecipherable tune. Even Yui looked stunned at the carefree attitude at play here; it was as if the world had not just turned upside down.

"Um… You're a mental health program, right?" Yui asked hesitantly. "This dress is a unique item, not even tailors can make one just like it."

The little girl titled her head. "'Mental health program'? What's that?"

"You mean you're not?" Yui asked. "But…But, that's not possible!"

Asuna placed a hand on Yui's shoulder. "Calm down," she said and turned towards the youngest child. "So, um, who are you then?"

"MHCP Zero Zero Two Strea! I 'membered it all!" Strea said, her chest puffed up proudly.

"Then you are like me!" Yui exclaimed, exasperation in her voice.

Strea tilted her head. "I am?"

"Yes!"

"Oh."

"Oh?!" Yui looked ready to pull her hair out. Clearly, Strea was much more carefree than the honest and serious Yui. Kirito expected it was the age difference, but then Yui had not been much better when she had amnesia.

"So, Strea, why are you here?" he asked, taking a seat next to her.

Strea shrugged. "Dunno."

"I see." Kirito shrugged; it was probably how Yui got there and until they knew how she got there, there was no point in thinking about it. "Y'know, Yui's right though. You are like her. In fact, she's like your big sister if you're number two."

"Kirito?"

"Papa?"

"Huh?"

Kirito nodded his head. "Yeah, Yui is number one so she's your big sister."

Strea turned towards Yui, her eyes sparkling. "Wow, I never 'ad a big sister before."

Yui just blinked at her, mouth hanging open. Strea grabbed the side of Yui's dress and chanted "sister, sister" repeatedly. Kirito caught Asuna's eye and he could tell she had the same thought.

Asuna cleared her throat. "You know, Stea, Yui's my daughter. Do you know what that means?" Strea shook her head. "If Yui's my daughter and your sister then…"

"You're also our daughter," Kirito said and Strea's eyes blinked owlishly.

"Wow. Today is the best," she said carelessly.

"Well, it's definitely something," Kirito muttered, reality sinking in once more. "C'mon, Yui, Strea, we need to head back over with those guys. We got, um, work to do."

Asuna grabbed Strea's hand, and Strea's hand latched tightly onto Yui's. Yui did not snatch it away, but there was a small frown on her face as she looked at their hands. Kirito grabbed hers and gave her a small, reassuring squeeze. She looked up at him and he smiled at her; Yui gave a small, unsure smile back.

"So…?" Klein asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's personal," Kirito and Asuna said together.

Klein's shoulders slumped but he kept silent.

"So, anyone come up with a plan?" Kirito asked instead.

"Well… with the new rendering we were thinking that this might be, y'know, r—"

"Don't say it!" Kirito snapped at Klein. "Not…Not yet. I won't say yes until I see proof with my own eyes."

Another player walked up to them. He was a tall, dark skinned man in green sleeveless cloth armor. "So, what do you suggest we do? Do I have to remind you what happened that first month?" Yui flinched violently. "The way things are now…I can't guarantee a bunch of people won't give up hope."

"Don't mention that!" Asuna snapped. "We aren't like before, Agil. We've survived for two years."

Agil shook his head. "People survived on hand outs and a promise to leave. Now who knows what happened? I've thought about it when you guys were over there, y'know? We were supposed to be let go but we're still here with everything being too realistic. It's too damn freaky. If I didn't think my wife would be disappointed in me, I probably would have done it too. And, I know I ain't the only one here who thought about it either."

Some of the other players shifted guiltily. Kirito closed his eyes; he was not very surprised. It is not liked he blamed them. It all seemed so hopeless now that they were trapped here after the final boss was killed, and these were the guys that knew this. What were mid level players like Lisbeth and Silica thinking about this? Or, those players who barely got by on the first floor? All of this must be so terrifying for them. Suddenly, the game rules were thrown away. This could be really bad.

"Asuna, we need to gather everyone up now."

She looked confused. "Everyone can already hear you."

He shook his head. "No, I mean everyone in the castle! We are the Assault Team, Asuna. We have to reassure them before…before we lose more people."

"Where would we gather them though?"

"The only place in the entire castle that can hold that many players. The place where our world was turned upside down once already."

"You mean…"

"The Town of Beginnings."

* * *

 **Writing Challenge One: Avoid the word "thing" in outside of dialogue.**

 **Writing Tip One: Forget you are writing a fanfiction as much as possible. It creates bad habits of avoiding or overbloating necessary descriptions even with OCs or original settings. Treat it as a new piece of work that people just know the premise of.**


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